Pariah

Pariah, member of a low-caste group of Hindu India, formerly known as “untouchables” but now called Dalits. The word pariah—originally derived from Tamil paṛaiyar, “drummer”—once referred to the Paraiyan, a Tamil caste group of labourers and village servants of low status, but the meaning was extended to embrace many groups outside the so-called clean caste groups, with widely varying degrees of status. See alsountouchable.

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in traditional Indian society, the former name for any member of a wide range of low-caste Hindu groups and any person outside the caste system. The use of the term and the social disabilities associated with it were declared illegal in the constitutions adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India...